Matthew 9:14-17 Not Fasting but Feasting
A member of the GB Athletics team who was in the the successful 400 meters relay squad was staying in our home. He comes from a Christian family. His mother told him that if he wants to receive God’s blessing when racing he ought to fast the day before a race. Is fasting really a way to obtain God’s blessing?
Why do people fast? Is it a means to get in God’s good books or can it be used as a means to impress others with my devotion to God?
In this passage there is a complaint against Jesus’ disciples. They were not behaving appropriately according to what the Pharisees thought was God’s law:
“Then John’s disciples came and asked him, “How is it that we and the Pharisees fast often, but your disciples do not fast?”
We are not told whether there was a national fast at the time or if they were discussing a principle. There are really two questions here:
1. ‘Why do we, the disciples of John, and the Pharisees fast?’
2. ‘Why don’t your disciples fast?’
The way John’s disciples and the Pharisees practiced their religion was based on very different principles to those of Jesus. The Pharisees and John’s followers fasted and mourned but Jesus’ followers seemed happy and saw no place for public mourning and fasting. Jesus had just had a party with godless people, they were feasting whilst the religious were fasting. It is possible that the low blood sugar levels of those fasting made them more critical and irritable!
The Context
It is important to say that fasting is not wrong. In the Old Testament Israel had to fast only one day a year, on the Day of Atonement. Later in the Old Testament earnest Jews fasted twice a week, specifically on Mondays and Thursdays, as a sign of mourning both for sin but also for the poor state of God’s people. This was not wrong so long as it represented a genuine expression of people’s innermost feelings and was not just hypocritical and done to impress. Yet Jesus did not encourage his disciples to fast and the relevant question is, ‘Why not’. Jesus’ teaching reveals what his listeners had failed to understand.
The Bridegroom is here
“Jesus answered, “How can the guests of the bridegroom mourn while he is with them? The time will come when the bridegroom will be taken from them; then they will fast.” Matthew 9:15
On January 5th 1973 Kathleen Rosemary Knight was due to be married in St Helen’s Church Bishopsgate. Do you think she woke up that morning excited? This was to be her big day. She was to be the centre of people’s interest. She was about to marry her bridegroom - who happened to be me.
Jesus is saying to his hearers,
‘Don’t you realise that the bridegroom is here?’
This may seem a strange analogy but those Pharisees would know what he meant.
Old Testament teaching about the Bridegroom
In the Old Testament, God (Yahweh) is frequently described as the husband or bridegroom of His people Israel, with the covenant at Mount Sinai viewed as a betrothal. Here are some examples:
“ . . .your Maker is your husband - the Lord of hosts is his name.” Isaiah 54:5-6
“As a young man marries a young woman, so will your Builder marry you; as a bridegroom rejoices over his bride, so will your God rejoice over you.” Isaiah 62:5
“You will call me 'my husband'... I will betroth you to me forever.” Hosea 2:16-20
The entire narrative of Hosea 1–3 acts as a living metaphor of God as the faithful husband to an unfaithful bride.
Jeremiah refers to the Lord's marriage with his people during the Exodus,
“. . . my covenant which they broke, though I was a husband to them.” Jeremiah 31:32
Ezekiel 16:8 describes God entering into a covenant and spreading His garment over Jerusalem, swearing an oath and saying, “you became mine.”
The Song of Solomon (also called the Song of Songs)
This book describes the loving relationship between a king and his bride. Ancient Jewish rabbis interpreted the book not merely as human love poetry, but as a holy allegory depicting the passionate love, courtship, and marriage covenant between Yahweh (the Bridegroom) and Israel (the Bride). Early Christian theologians adopted this allegorical framework but shifted the focus. They interpreted the Bridegroom as the Messiah (Jesus Christ) and the Bride as the Church (or the individual believer's soul). This directly links the Song of Solomon to New Testament imagery where Christ is explicitly named as the Bridegroom. These are some key passages from this book about the relationship God wants with his people:
“Draw me after you; let us run. The king has brought me into his chambers.” Song of Solomon 1:4
Allegorically, this represents God inviting Israel into the Holy of Holies or Christ drawing believers into intimate fellowship.
“He brought me to the banqueting house, and his banner over me was love." Song of Solomon 2:4
This is interpreted as the spiritual shelter, protection, and abundant provision God gives to His chosen people.
“My beloved is mine, and I am his.” Song of Solomon 2:16 (also 6:3)
This is viewed as the ultimate expression of the close relationship God wants with his people, and this is seen throughout scripture:
“. . . but I gave them this command: obey me, and I will be your God and you will be my people. Walk in obedience to all I command you, that it may go well with you.” Jeremiah 7:23
This close relationship is also emphasised in Genesis 17:7, Exodus 6:7, Ezekiel 34:24, Ezekiel 36:28, Jeremiah 30:22, Jeremiah 31:33. This is the essence of the Bible’s teaching. A real relationship with God must be in our hearts. The famous Jewish ‘Shema’ emphasises this. The disaster was that in Jesus’ time the Pharisees emphasised the outward show of religion which is not what God wants.
“Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts.” Deuteronomy 6:4-6
The New Testament keeps asking us,
“Have I invited the Lord Jesus into my heart to live with me there?”
This is what it means to ‘believe in him”. Thus
“Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God.” John 1:12
“Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with that person, and they with me.” Revelation 3:20
Exclusive devotion to him that results in a holy life are the sort of relationship that God expects between God's people and Himself. He chose us to be set apart from the world.
“Set me as a seal upon your heart . . . for love is strong as death . . . Many waters cannot quench love.” Song of Solomon 8:6-7
This symbolises the unyielding, unbreakable, and sacrificial nature of God's covenant love for His people. The New Testament frequently refers to this heavenly feast.
New Testament teaching about the Bridegroom
The New Testament writers took these exact themes of exclusive covenant intimacy and directly assigned the role of the Bridegroom to Jesus Christ.
Jesus refers to Himself as the bridegroom who is currently present with His guests.
“Jesus answered, “How can the guests of the bridegroom fast while he is with them? They cannot, so long as they have him with them. But the time will come when the bridegroom will be taken from them, and on that day they will fast.” Mark 2:19-20
John the Baptist explicitly calls Jesus the Bridegroom and identifies himself merely as the ‘friend of the bridegroom.’ He said about Jesus:
“The bride belongs to the bridegroom. The friend who attends the bridegroom waits and listens for him, and is full of joy when he hears the bridegroom’s voice. That joy is mine, and it is now complete.” John 3:29
The Apostle Paul compares human marriage directly to the relationship between Christ and the Church (Ephesians 5:25-32). He states that Christ loved the Church and gave Himself up for her to present her ‘splendid, without spot or wrinkle.’
In the book of Revelation the entire Biblical narrative culminates with the picture of a wedding.
“Let us rejoice and be glad and give him glory! For the wedding of the Lamb has come, and his bride has made herself ready.Fine linen, bright and clean, was given her to wear.” (Fine linen stands for the righteous acts of God’s holy people.) Then the angel said to me, “Write this: Blessed are those who are invited to the wedding supper of the Lamb!” And he added, “These are the true words of God.” Revelation 19:7-9
“I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband.” Revelation 21:2
The people of Israel were longing for the day what God would fulfil his promises and enter his world to save his people. Matthew shows us that God has kept these promises. The Messiah has come, sins are forgiven, the incurable are healed, his teaching resonates with the emphases of the Old Testament. Jesus fulfils all the prophecies about the coming Messiah - he is the divine Bridegroom.
Fasting and mourning were closely associated in Jewish thinking. Matthew links the two:
““How is it that we and the Pharisees fast often, but your disciples do not fast?” Jesus answered, “How can the guests of the bridegroom mourn while he is with them?” Matthew 9:14-15
The Bridegroom is taken away
In the midst of this celebration comes a jarring concept, ‘the bridegroom will be taken away’:
“The time will come when the bridegroom will be taken from them; then they will fast.” Matthew 9:15
His removal and death will indeed be a time for mourning and fasting. When a person is really sad it is hard to find an appetite. Matthew has already told us what will happen to the Messiah by referring back to the prophet Isaiah; he will suffer and die to pay for our sin and its consequence, disease:
“He took up our infirmities and bore our diseases.” Matthew 8:17
Isaiah said:
“For he was cut off from the land of the living; for the transgression of my people he was punished.” Isaiah 53:8
Jesus is the bridegroom, he is the Lord God who entered the world he has made, to die for his people, his bride. For him to save us he had to be taken away, he had to die. At that time the celebration about his coming will be on hold for a little while. Those who are mourning have little appetite.
Why did Jesus have to die?
Why didn’t God just click his fingers and sort out the mess in this world? Why couldn’t he just say ‘You are forgiven’?. Why did Jesus have to die? This assumes that all God needs to do is to say a word and all can be forgotten and forgiven. The Bible teaches that the problem is far deeper and more serious than we realise. It goes deep into the hearts of all people and God hates the sin we commit. In the Old Testament, the only remedy for sin was the sacrifice of a perfect lamb, its blood was the symbolic means by which sin was transferred to another.
“In fact, the law requires that nearly everything be cleansed with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.” Hebrews 9:22
In the New Testament the spirits occupying Legion, the man who lived among the tombs and was possessed by many spirits, had to transferred to about 2000 pigs for him to be freed. For us to be put right with God our sin has to be paid for. God is a God of justice. To put the problem right, the bridegroom must be taken away and die to pay the penalty for us. If Jesus had not done this there could never be a wedding feast.
In his second letter to the troubled church in Corinth, Paul explains that Christians are engaged to one husband. In those days an engagement was stronger than today but a couple were not finally married until they lived together. In a similar way we Christians do belong to Christ, we are his bride, but we also are waiting for the day of his coming in glory so we can enjoy the wedding banquet with him.
“I promised you to one husband, to Christ, so that I might present you as a pure virgin to him.But I am afraid that just as Eve was deceived by the serpent’s cunning, your minds may somehow be led astray from your sincere and pure devotion to Christ.” 2 Corinthians 11:2-3
Our only hope is to remain committed to Christ. The preparations for this marriage feast are still being made. Our place is secure; Jesus death has paid the price for us but still the invitations need to keep going out, far and wide into this world marred by sin and its consequences. Now we will face difficulties and pain, but the outcome for those committed to Christ is not in doubt. This means we can and should rejoice now, even if we still have tears. Peter could write just before he was executed:
“In all this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials.These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith - of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire - may result in praise, glory and honour when Jesus Christ is revealed.” 1 Peter 1:6-7
Life will never be the same again
This is true for marriage. Many changes by both will be needed if a couple are to live together in harmony. Those who think little will change, that they can continue their old habits and live separate lives are sorely mistaken. Something is not right.
Jesus wants his followers to understand that the old life and the new are utterly different.
“No one sews a patch of unshrunk cloth on an old garment, for the patch will pull away from the garment, making the tear worse. Neither do people pour new wine into old wineskins. If they do, the skins will burst; the wine will run out and the wineskins will be ruined. No, they pour new wine into new wineskins, and both are preserved.” Matthew 9:14-17
These illustrations are from a very different world but their meaning is clear. The old and new cannot combine. Paul emphasised the importance of this radical change when writing to the troubled Christians in Corinth:
“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!” 2 Corinthians 5:17
Before Jesus came, religious life consisted of fasting, sacrifices, priests and temples. They had missed the significance of these outward signs. They all looked forwards to the coming of God’s Messiah, their bridegroom. Now he has come everything must change.
Mercy shines, not religion
Jesus has just emphasised that this is what God primarily wants to see in his people:
“But go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.” Matthew 9:13
Jesus is quoting Hosea 6:6. This chapter from the Old Testament describes what it will mean to come back to a relationship with God. His followers must openly acknowledge who they are following because he will certainly appear on earth:
“Come, let us return to the Lord. . . . Let us acknowledge the Lord; let us press on to acknowledge him. As surely as the sun rises, he will appear;
he will come to us like the winter rains, like the spring rains that water the earth.” Hosea 6:1-3
A faith that comes from God will focus first on internal changes in our thinking and priorities and not the externals such as church that are secondary. Mercy is a characteristic of God so it will always be seen in his people, those who have his Spirit.
The Old Testament taught that sacrifice was essential if men were to approach the holy God. Obviously the sacrifice of a sheep cannot put a person right with God. These were symbols of the one ultimate sacrifice that Jesus would make, once for all time. Jesus came and ‘was taken away’. His ‘once for all time’ sacrifice means we have been completely forgiven. We have now been given the Spirit of God to live new lives that copy him.
It is therefore silly to say that more sacrifices are needed. Some people think that the communion service is a repeat of Christ’s sacrifice. It is not, we ‘do this in remembrance’ of what Jesus has done ‘once for all time’:
Hebrews 7:27, 9:28, 10:10, and 10:12: These verses emphasise that Jesus offered Himself up once for all, bearing the sins of many, sanctifying believers through that single offering, and sitting down at the right hand of God.
Romans 6:10: Explains that His death was for sin once for all.
1 Peter 3:18: Notes that Christ suffered once for sins to bring us to God.
2. Temples are no longer needed
When Jesus healed the paralytic he did this to show that he was God and therefore had the power to forgive sin.
On earth the place where sin had been forgiven up to that point was in the temple where the sacrifices were offered. If sacrifices are no longer needed for forgiveness then the temple was no longer necessary.
This was unthinkable to his hearers but Matthew tells us later that the physical temple in Jerusalem would be destroyed. It has never been rebuilt because it is no longer necessary.
“‘Truly I tell you, not one stone here will be left on another; every one will be thrown down.’” Matthew 24:2
Christians have buildings to meet in and we are grateful for these. However no part of our buildings are more holy than others. Some years ago we took our family to look around Rome. Whenever I suggested visiting anew church, our son Andy would correctly remind us all that a church is not the building, it is the people who are committed to following Christ.
In the New Testament, the ‘temple’ is a word used to describe both Jesus and his people
3. Priests are now different
Earlier in Matthew (Matthew 8:4), when a leper had been healed, he was told to show himself to the priest where sin offerings would be offered. The temple, priests and sacrifices were there to mediate between God and man. Now the final sacrifice has been offered there is no further need for the temple of for those priests.
Jesus is described as a our eternal High Priest who offered that unique sacrifice of himself. However all Christians are also described as being God’s priests now. We are the intermediaries between God and the people in the world in the sense that we share with them the message about Jesus and the forgiveness he offers.
“But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.” 1 Peter 2:9
But as priests once offered other kinds of sacrifices in the temple, the sort of sacrifices Christians who are the temple of God are to offer, are very different:
“ . . . you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.” 1 Peter 2:5
We who were once ‘not a people’ and ‘had not received mercy’ are the people of God who serve as holy priests because of the mercy of God.
“Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.” 1 Peter 2:10
The second thing to know about the priesthood of believers is that we are chosen for a purpose: to offer up spiritual sacrifices (cf. Hebrews 13:15–16) and to
“. . . declare the praises of him who called us out of darkness into his wonderful light” 1 Peter 2:9
Thus, both by life (1 Peter 2:5; Titus 2:11–14; Ephesians 2:10) and by what we say (1 Peter 2:9; 3:15), a Christian’s purpose is to serve God. Our bodies are the temple of the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 6:19–20) and so God has called us to serve Him with all we are. We offer our lives as living sacrifices (Romans 12:1–2).
One day we will be serving God in eternity (Revelation 22:3–4), but not in any temple, for “the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple” (Revelation 21:22). As the Old Testament priesthood was to be free of defilement, so has Christ made us holy positionally before the Father. He calls on us to live holy lives that we might also be a “holy priesthood” (1 Peter 2:5).
In summary, believers are called “a royal priesthood” as a reflection of their privileged status as heirs to the kingdom of the Almighty God and of the Lamb. When we are in Christ, our High Priest, we have a closeness to God, and no earthly mediator is necessary. As priests in God’s kingdom, we recognise that salvation is not merely “an insurance policy” but an opportunity to serve God in offering spiritual sacrifices. The royal priesthood is comprised of people “eager to do what is good” (Titus 2:14). As priests of the living God, we give praise to the One who sacrificed Himself on our behalf, and we share the wonderful news of this grace with others.
In view of this teaching, fasting is relatively insignificant. Our attempts to impress God with our sincerity is very insignificant with what Jesus has done for us. The response God really wants is not religious actions but a deep-seated devotion to serving him. This will be reflected in the way we deal with other people. Jesus said to the Pharisees:
“Go and learn what this means ‘ I desire mercy and not sacrifice’ (quoted from Hosea). “ For I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.” Matthew 9:13
BVP
If you would like to discuss further please get in touch with me on - berniepalmer1@sky.com
My website is – www.bvpalmer.com which contains many interesting articles on a variety of subjects
‘Christchurch Baldock’ meets at 10.30 am every Sunday in Knights Templar School, Baldock.
